While the nation's top four carriers have been duking it out on TV and in the courts, MetroPCS, the fifth-largest carrier has quietly amassed a nationwide network and has begun rolling out LTE service in select metro areas.

The Dallas-based company announced that 90 percent of the U.S. population is now covered by the carrier with today's introduction of its Metro USA nationwide service plans. The company's Wireless For All plans range from $40 to $60 per month and include unlimited buckets of talk, text, and web (depending on plan).

"Metro USA is yet another key milestone for our company as we have expanded nearly everywhere where our customers may use their service in the majority of the United States," said MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist. "Our customers already benefit from the affordability, flexibility and predictability of our Wireless for All service, and now they can use their wireless services nearly anywhere they go in the nation."

In addition to the nationwide service plan, MetroPCS has also announced the availability today of 4G LTE data services in metropolitan Los Angeles and Philadelphia, adding to the current metros of Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, and Las Vegas.

The company offers what it dubs "the world's first commercially available 4G LTE-enabled multimedia handset," the Samsung Craft, for $299 (with no contract). The Craft boasts a 3.3" AMOLED touchscreen, 480 x 800 resolution, full-QWERTY slide-out keyboard, and Samsung's proprietary OS with TouchWiz. Service plans for the device, and all future 4G devices, range from $55 to $60 per month, all taxes and fees included.

It's important to keep in mind, as PCMag points out, that most MetroPCS-enabled cities never had 3G to begin with. So its 4G network really takes the place of 3G, and browsing speed on the craft was more akin to 3G (at about 1 megabit per second).

MetroPCS plans to expand its 4G services into Atlanta, Boston, Jacksonville, Miami, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, San Francisco, Tampa throughout the end of the year and early 2011.

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Oh good, glad to hear that it's just not updated yet. I'm VERY tempted to try either Metro or Sprint's Boost CDMA.

I assume Metro must be roaming off someone to suddenly get nationwide coverage, but I wonder who? Here it would have to be Sprint, Verizon, or U.S. Cellular (USCC's got the best coverage here by far, though Sprint and Verizon aren't terrible.)